


ovation

by dragonsong (NekoAisu)



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers, Final Fantasy XIV: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Magic, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers, Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers Spoilers, Post-Patch 5.0: Shadowbringers, Zine: Musica Universalis: A Music-Themed Final Fantasy XIV Fanzine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-27
Packaged: 2021-03-18 01:47:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29726448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoAisu/pseuds/dragonsong
Summary: “Had I the ability to slow all that they do to half speed, I would,” Igeyorhm admits between bites of salad. “They need to slow down before they trip and break their nose again. Oh, how’s your door, Emet-Selch? They almost dented Halmarut’s wall last time.”“Fine,” he replies airily. It’s not like he would not have been able to fix it if they had.She nods and proceeds to grill Nabriales on the mechanics of Double and Triplecast. The rest of his meal is uneventful, as is his week. It’s almost a relief when Azem returns early to kick open his door (and were those neon green socks under that robe of theirs? Really?) and free him of the shackles of professionalism.
Relationships: Azem & Emet-Selch & Hythlodaeus (Final Fantasy XIV), Azem & Emet-Selch (Final Fantasy XIV), Emet-Selch & Hythlodaeus (Final Fantasy XIV)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	ovation

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the FFXIV Musica Universalis zine!
> 
> I had a wonderful time working on this zine and writing this. I hope you enjoy it as much as I have!

Hades is born with sound in his head. He taps his fingers, hums along to tunes no one else can hear, and is altogether a rather eccentric child. When he asks his peers and pesters elders for answers as to why he does not have the silence spoken of in books and records of study, he is met with patience and an unlikely friend. 

Hythlodaeus is strange and likes to talk with too much maturity. They wear their communal robe and plain, owl-like mask without being asked and are never late to debate. Hades wonders how they do it, the whole sitting quietly to listen, listen,  _ listen  _ when there is a need to tap or bounce or  _ sing.  _ “I see no reason why you should not be permitted to engage in something small. There are plenty of others like you within this room. Surely, they will understand your needs.”

(He is informed rather quickly by their supervisor that his pen-clicking is not permitted within the debate chamber.)

They stick close as they grow. Hythlodaeus laughs when they recognize the same pattern Hades taps as a centerpoint to his first architectural installment. “I would have thought you the sort to make a new song of it,” they comment, pointing to the scribbled staff next to a diagram for a singing fountain, “but I see your flair for the dramatic is only reserved for debating with Venat and Athena.”

“Oh, don’t you start,” Hades grumbles with feigned upset. His refuse bin is overflowing with rejected Concepts and crossed-out sketches. He wants to be the Architect and make Amaurot into something other than dull, grey boxes and a collection of minimalist indulgences. He wants to fill it with sound the way his head has been from birth. He wants to turn the entirety of it to music, one fantastic symphony he could conduct for centuries to come, and then pass the baton to the next of his Seat so they create an opus of their own. 

Then, he gets his wish. “Congratulations,” their newly anointed Elidibus says from behind a small stack of missives. “Your office is the third door to the left.”

The whole affair is rather anticlimactic. 

He settles into his new role with grace. He decorates his office quickly and tastefully (what he would not give to have his own bureau), with a small phonograph set near to his desk. He has his work set out for him the same way Elidibus did, but soon finds it’s about half letters of commendation and half actual requests for approval or schematics. He is nearly done sorting through and signing what few require his actual attention and not just a stamp of his glyph when his door flies open and introduces him to both a headache and the fourteenth Seat. 

“Good afternoon, Emet-Selch,” they chirp, with no fewer than three binders tucked under one arm, “and goodbye! I’ll be back in Amaurot in, uh… three? Four? Weeks. Something like that. Just wanted to say hi, introduce myself, and get going. So yeah! I’m Azem, I know you’re Emet-Selch already, and I’m running late for my ride out. Bye now!”

They are down the hall before he can muster a response. His door is left open, creaking gently on its hinges. 

He blinks slowly before rising from his chair and closing it. He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs, hoping their return would not be just as wild. 

All the Azems of eld had been… singular. They were the one representative of Amaurot whose job was to  _ leave  _ it, often taking their already unorthodox attitude and molding a terror out of it. Communal robes were nearly unheard of and their mask, the one passed down from each prior Shepherd, is the brightest, most brilliant red he has ever seen. This new one is no exception in appearance or attitude. He would do best to ignore their machinations and storytelling when they return, he tells himself and settles back down, proceeding to scribble music in the margins of his notes for the rest of the day. 

The rest of the Convocation is much more reasonable, he learns over lunch the following afternoon. They all agree that Azem is a bit… uncontrollable. Lahabrea says it isn’t a  _ bad  _ thing, but he does worry one of these days they might barge into his laboratory without warning and ruin all of his cultures. 

“Had I the ability to slow all that they do to half speed, I would,” Igeyorhm admits between bites of salad. “They need to slow down before they trip and break their nose again. Oh, how’s your door, Emet-Selch? They almost dented Halmarut’s wall last time.”

“Fine,” he replies airily. It’s not like he would not have been able to fix it if they had. 

She nods and proceeds to grill Nabriales on the mechanics of Double and Triplecast. The rest of his meal is uneventful, as is his week. It’s almost a relief when Azem returns early to kick open his door (and were those neon green socks under that robe of theirs? _Really?_ ) and free him of the shackles of professionalism. 

“Emet-Selch, my new accomplice, I need your help.”

He gathers his unfinished work into a stack and taps it on his desk to even out the corners before standing and turning to them. He asks as kindly as he can manage (which is not much after getting chewed out by Elidibus for turning in the wrong forms for a remodeling permit) why they have oh so politely barged into his office in the middle of the workday to drag him into some unknown infraction. 

They fiddle with their hands, tapping a one-two-three-and-a-quarter rhythm on their palm as they struggle for words. They settle on saying, “I thought you might like it?” He can see them smile sheepishly from beneath their mask. 

He sighs, shaking his head, and finds himself smiling back. “Lead the way, then.”

They take to the streets with little difficulty, citing a lunch break and not hooky when Elidibus frowns doubtfully at them. Azem pulls him along by the hand like they are family or lovers and not just coworkers (they are barely even  _ friends)  _ even when they are scolded by their elders and cautioned against such blatant displays of affection. Amaurot is built upon the belief that they should all conform to a centralized appearance and philosophy wherein individuality is celebrated in  _ moderation  _ and not Azem’s particular brand of excess. 

Hades barely manages to read street signs as they hurry him along to witness their surprise. He is overwhelmed and disoriented by their energy, the buzzing of their aether, and the brilliance of their soul. It’s almost a lesser offense to his sensibilities when they pull matrices from among the folds of their robes and shove them into his hands, demanding, “Make this for me.”

He examines the notes and empty matrices with mild and then rapt interest. They’re… musical. Just like his first fountain, or the steps up to their grand theater. It’s all a complimentary melody to his own. 

“How did you make this?”

They just beam at him, tapping the same rhythm on their hand as always, and say, “You and I both don’t know silence. I just wanted to make mine suit yours a little better.”

“Oh,” he replies quietly. Somehow, despite their nearly manic energy and intervention, he hadn’t thought about them being the same as him. He presses the thought of their accompaniment into the first concept matrix, followed by the second, and a small laugh when the third matrix only sputters instead of harboring his commands. 

Azem whistles loudly as if to ignore his judgement for the bootleg materials they had provided. 

“I struggle to think you the shy sort,” he remarks, checking the integrity of the successful two, “when you allegedly dented Halmarut’s wall with your welcome.”

“And then skipped town,” they add. “I am a very sensitive person, Emet-Selch, and would like to be praised for my ingenuity rather than nagged for it.”

He laughs despite himself, tossing the matrices back at them. 

What a strange person, this Azem is. What type of Shepherd cannot shoulder the burden of a little criticism when their entire job revolves around being the odd one out? He wants to know in the same way he wants to see more of them.

(It’s just curiosity, he tells himself until he believes it, and he isn’t fixated on them and their melody. He has begun to anticipate their pattern of tapping and skipping and  _ singing  _ like they are the one that now lives in the back of his mind. It would pass as soon as his curiosity is sated.)

He makes a point from then on to visit them himself. He brings  _ actual  _ matrices with him and proper forms so their joint Creations can be approved before they find a suitable spot and slam aether into being. It’s only when they come back from one of their far-off adventures that he notices something is amiss. 

They do not bounce. They do not hum. They sit quiet and terrified in their chair during a Convocation meeting like an omen. 

“There is something wrong with our world,” they say softly, near to heartbroken when Elidibus asks what ails them. 

Their explanation is more of a feeling than words, soul spilling golden and feverish out of their body and into the room to share visions of the wrongness. There are blackened fields, fires, and showers of stars torn from the heavens by some unknown power. It is haunting when Emet-Selch hears the sound of their mind in the distance, a pounding, crackling voice that sounds like the crying of the earth more than one of his fellows. 

He cannot even muster the words to comfort them before a debate begins. 

There are many solutions brought up and denied. They all go home unsatisfied. 

It isn’t until the brokenness threatens to knock at their door that they reach a conclusion. They need something greater than them and their enlightenment. They need a  _ god.  _

Zodiark is summoned in short order and Emet-Selch meets the new Elidibus. He is somehow even more of a stickler than the one who came before. They are not friends. 

Azem leaves to provide aid to other cities when Zodiark fails to redress the imbalance afflicting their world. He does not see them for nearly three months and, even then, only sees them in passing. He catches a glimpse of their mask and the ragged edges of their soul before departing on a pilgrimage of his own. 

When he returns, his world (Amaurot and Azem) are gone. He stares at the sundered pieces of them and wonders if somehow they could be put back together. Elidibus, the old one, his friend, says they could. He will make it so. They just need to trust in Zodiark’s will. 

It feels like a false comfort, but he accepts it. 

The noise in his head has already begun to sound like Azem when he finds the first piece of their soul. They tap the same rhythm, but do not recognize him. The second is much the same. The third, fourth, and fifth are all so unlike them it nearly makes him ill, but the soul is the same. Even torn to shreds and distributed between unworthy vessels, they are inimitable. 

Then, impossibly, he meets the Warrior of Light and is reminded of Amaurot so strongly that he tears it from the ruins of a Shard just to hold onto the hope that maybe they will see and  _ remember.  _ He places Hythlodaus among other facsimiles and does his best not to feel bitter when his friend just asks why he cannot let them go. Their song has long since faded from memory. 

This is his masterwork, though, and when he finds out that fate is on his side, that they are on the First and looking to save it from itself, he can barely contain himself. He visits and asks things of them. They never respond correctly. 

When he stops the Exarch from his ridiculous self-sacrifice and drags him below the waves, it’s less so for the threat he poses and more so for the final chance of forcing them to see. They would follow him into the Tempest and walk the streets of Amaurot just as they used to. It may be a bit oversized for a lesser being like them, but it would be  _ enough. _

Despite his best efforts, despite all that he did for them, they only ever look at him like he is something incomprehensible. It’s as if they have been convinced that their fugue is true consciousness and that Hydaelyn (his enemy, Venat’s greatest success) truly cares for them and their safety. He only has one option left. 

He will fight them, he says even when his magic falters, and they  _ will  _ fall. He will be victorious and even the heavens will sing his praise because Azem cannot. For the first time in his entire existence, his self-talk fails him. 

The axe connecting with his form burns hotter than the End of Days and he can feel himself give beneath its edge. His masks, his brethren, fall away like meteorites as his sorcery spills from his grasp. 

“Remember us,” he tells them. He knows they will, even if it is only this time as enemies, but he sees them look up at him with a flash of  _ something  _ in their eyes. He smiles, wry and resigned, and resigns himself to one final death. 

He receives no ovations for his performance, no cheering or relief from those he failed, but he is given one comfort. For the first and last time, his mind is silent. It is unfairly peaceful for someone like him.

**Author's Note:**

> hmu on twitter [@khirimochi](https://twitter.com/khirimochi) !


End file.
